


A Long Friendship

by SaintedAunt



Category: Biggles Series - W. E. Johns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 19:52:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3541850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintedAunt/pseuds/SaintedAunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Algy Lacey writes an account...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Long Friendship

_Prologue_

_It was just a few weeks ago when I realised that it was exactly fifty years since we met at Maranique. I don’t quite know what it was that made that anniversary seem so significant and what it was that made me decide to write about our lives, but I did, and I have. It has made waiting for my turn a little more bearable._

++++

I was born into a world of privilege, although I didn’t realise it until I was much older. A secure and loving family background, wanting for nothing, a country estate to explore, education at Prep and Public school – what better start in life could any boy have? Well, perhaps not to be born at the wrong time – if it was the wrong time; if there is ever a right time.

By the time I was sixteen, the world in which I had grown up had been turned on its head; the great European and Eastern empires had been at war for two years. Even as a schoolboy I was aware of feelings of change. We all ached to get to the Front – that magical place where men performed heroic deeds; where there was glory, sacrifice, thrills and adventure. Typical schoolboy stuff and as unrealistic as many of the other dreams we had, passing from childhood to boyhood and beyond. It was only later that we discovered reality.

But I digress. The hows and whys and whens are unimportant; they fade into the far distance – but one memory is unforgettable. With my new uniform, my log book, my proud boast of ten hours on the already legendary Camel, I arrived at R.F.C. Squadron No. 266, Maranique, France, courtesy of my mother who had pulled every string in her armoury to get me posted to the same squadron as my cousin. This was not an auspicious occasion. Said cousin was far from pleased to be allocated the task of nursemaid – and who could blame him.

I recognised him immediately from a photo at home: slight, fair-haired and good-looking in that boyish way that is so very English. I was taller by an inch or so – for some reason that seemed important at the time, possibly because my friendly greeting was returned with coldness, almost to the point of hostility. But it was his eyes that held me, and continued to hold me throughout a lifetime: deep-set, shades of green, yellow and brown, the exact colour depending on the light and his mood. Alive to the point of restlessness, they reflected his emotions; flashing golden sparks in anger, darkening in distress or dancing lightly with amusement.

He wasn’t much older than me either – but little lines round his eyes and mouth made him seem older than his years. Stress-lines of war – I got them too, eventually. Later, as he grew up, he learned to hide his emotions; self-protection – it’s what you do to keep control. I did the same. Interesting, what we do and do not let other people see; you have to know some people really well to get even part of the way down through the layers. Especially people like Captain James Bigglesworth, Flight Commander of C Flight.

++++

I cannot help but smile as I think back to that first day. I blotted my copybook with gay abandon. I was told to stick with my Flight Commander and not to go down after a Hun – so when I spotted some Huns, what did I do but follow them, full of the excitement of the chase. I even got one. Exulting at my first triumph, I landed at Maranique feeling on top of the world. That didn’t last long. My Flight Commander told me in no uncertain terms exactly what he thought of me and what he would do to me if I ever disobeyed him again. He completed my deflation by pointing out that my kill had been a lucky accident. He was right too.

That was one of the things that annoyed me at first. He was always right, or usually right. I got over that though – not only was it useful to have someone around who was usually right, he was also just about the most unboastful, un-self-seeking person I ever met.

But I digress – again! On the second day we went up at dawn – my God it was cold. I have never been a willing early riser; one of the few things I hated about school was getting up early and having cold showers. There were three of us on this dawn patrol: my Flight Commander, another chap and, of course, me. This time I was going to do what I was told.

We saw a group of Fokkers, and I was pleased with myself for knowing what they were. Then… there we were in the midst of a whirling mass of confusion. I am sure it was just an everyday dog fight: six of them and three of us, but I had no preconception of what it would feel like to have planes coming and going all round me, flashing across my sights one minute, shooting at my tail the next. The next moment, I had a textbook chance for a shot, just as we learned at flying school. I pressed my gun lever… and nothing happened; my guns were jammed; totally, utterly, completely, jammed.

I heard and then saw that a Camel had collided with one of the Huns, and realised with a sickening feeling that it was now five of them to two of us. He sent me back, clearly waving his left hand above his head. Obediently, I dived for the lines, expecting him to be close behind me. How naïve can you be! When I looked back, they were tearing round in a circle: four of them and him. Well – what could I do! He said afterwards that he was as horrified as they were when I cut across the circle and then flew in the opposite direction. But it was a damned good way to scatter them and, before they could recover, we were across our lines and on the way to Maranique and safety.

I remembered what he had said he would do if I disobeyed him again, because I had, again – he had sent me home. But it turned out there was one rule for being disobedient on your own, but another if you saved your Flight Commander’s skin! He just grinned and said I’d do, and I could call him Biggles!  Well, I wasn’t going to leave it one-sided so I told him I was Algy not Algernon. After that we became friends.

In fact we quickly became close friends. Members of C Flight came and went, but Biggles and I seemed to have a charmed life. Mahoney said this once, but when I pointed out that he wasn’t allowing for skill, Biggles immediately jumped in and declared our turn would come – not that he’d ever admit to being superstitious!

++++

The second half of 1917 was a good time. It must sound the most crazy thing in the world to talk about a good time when you are fighting in a war but there is no doubt about it, there were good times as well as bad, and we had a lot of fun. Too many of us didn’t come back from patrols but you didn’t dwell on this – you couldn’t. You wrapped another layer round your emotions, raised your glass and sang lustily in the Mess – or in my case as often as not, tried to get the tune out of the battered piece of furniture that purported to be our piano.

By the time I’d been there a month I felt like an old hand – and I’d graduated from ginger beer to the real thing, much to Biggles’ relief. For the most part, once we’d left the ground, we were free, free to go where we liked and do what we liked – as long as we hassled the enemy. Biggles liked to lie in wait for Hun planes returning to their aerodromes. He’d take his flight up really high, in the sun so they didn’t spot us, and just when they thought they were safe, down we’d go.

Sometimes our C.O. Major Mullen would lead the whole squadron up. Biggles – it had to be him of course – once persuaded Mullen to take up our squadron, plus another two nearby, to lay a trap for a particularly vicious gang of Hun hooligans who thought it fair game to attack pilots newly arrived in France. We showed them the difference between new pilots and experienced pilots, and reduced their aerodrome to rubble.

Biggles and I developed an instinct for flying and fighting together; I suppose really it was because we both survived so long. We each learned how the other worked; we discussed tactics; we trusted each other; thus we could do a double act in perfect harmony, much to the detriment of the enemy.

But the war was beginning to tell on Biggles; he considered it was his responsibility to take his flight up and bring us all back in one piece, and if we lost a fellow, he minded. Not that we didn’t all mind. Of course we minded, but he felt responsible, guilty even. Too conscientious – that was his trouble, and as the war dragged on, too much of his natural sense of fun was replaced by a new and grim sense of duty.

Higher Command got their claws into him too. Our Wing Intelligence Officer was a certain Major Raymond, later promoted to Colonel. Biggles was flying two-seaters in 169 Squadron when he first met Major Raymond. Raymond asked him to do a job over the lines. Needless to say, Biggles was successful and it wasn’t long before they asked him again, and again, and… He was too successful, too efficient, too reliable. As he ruefully admitted, “Once you say yes, and make a decent job of it, you’ve had it.” But he did like the challenge and the excitement of doing something that wasn’t routine. So did I – because, needless to say, it was only a question of time before I was roped in.

As 1917 gave way to 1918, we achieved air superiority at last. Our planes matched the enemy’s, if not exceeded them. 266 Squadron started to have a serious impact on our sector of the Western Front, as did other squadrons up and down the line. Biggles, in one of his crazier moments, fetched us a Christmas turkey from behind the lines. Fortunately, nobody who mattered got to hear of that little episode, else, for sure, he would have been reprimanded. Again! He had already been reprimanded once, but that was before I arrived. He had gone berserk in a captured German tank, or so Mahoney said. But he was prejudiced because Biggles had reduced his Camel to matchwood. MacLaren was more forgiving: “the boy got trapped in it, started it by accident, and didn’t know how to stop it.”

I had my share of crazy moments too. Not long after I arrived, I decided the aerodrome needed brightening up. I went along to the local market looking for plants but all I could get were sunflowers. I wasn’t sure how well they’d stand up if they grew really tall – the ones at home had a tendency to lean sideways if we got too many high winds. But this was France, home of summer sunshine and just the place for cheerful sunflowers, or so I thought. I hadn’t reckoned on night bombers; it only took one, a Hannoverana; it laid its egg right in the middle of my new flowerbed. However, I took my revenge. I set off well before dawn; me, voluntarily getting up in the dark! That tells you how angry I was. My raid was perfectly timed and superbly executed, if I may say so. I reduced their geraniums and lettuces to shreds and dust.

My Flight Commander wasn’t so pleased! I’d woken him up and he’d dashed off with his flight to follow me. Scornful about my apparent inability to hit either a hangar or an aeroplane, or even a machine-gun pit, he thought I’d taken leave of my senses when I explained. Fortunately he had to go off on the dawn patrol with the rest of our flight, and by the time he got back, he’d seen the funny side of it. One of the nicest things about Biggles was the way he never held something against you for long. He said what he thought, then moved on. It made him wonderful to serve with because he never held grudges, or sulked or moaned – except at the weather if it stopped him from flying!

++++

I suppose it is inevitable that you remember some ‘shows’ and forget others. One that stands out in my memory, not long after my revenge for the sunflowers, was the sheer brass face of a couple of schoolboys. They had learned to fly and were marking time at school, impatiently, waiting until they were old enough to fight. How well I understood that frustration! When the brother of one of them was reported missing, they took matters into their own hands, borrowed his old uniforms, pinched a couple of Camels and flew over to France to find him.

How lucky they were. Meeting a Hun, they hadn’t a clue what to do and undoubtedly would have been two more tangled wrecks in the mud if Biggles hadn’t come along. And they were doubly lucky. When they followed him to Maranique, our C.O. Major Mullen took them at face value and assigned them to Biggles’ Flight. Biggles taught them how to shoot straight and survive, and when by chance he found out what they were up to, he didn’t betray them. It was a risk, but neither of us was averse to taking risks if we thought they were justified.

In the end it all turned out remarkably well. Inevitably, it was Biggles who master-minded it; we helped the boys set up a rescue flight using pre-arranged pick up points behind the lines. Not only did we find the brother – to say nothing of several highly successful missions achieved _en passant_ – the boys acquitted themselves so well that, when they were eventually found out by Higher Command, they were given commissions ‘in the field’. However, our C.O. did have a quiet word with Biggles afterwards – to do with officer responsibility I rather think! But Biggles was silent on the subject and I didn’t ask.

++++

In the spring of 1918, Biggles took some much-needed leave – and a fat lot of good that did him. It was a case of mistaken identity – Biggles was mistaken by a German agent for a cashiered pilot who had Hun sympathies. Higher Command put Biggles on the spot with their usual ‘duty of every Englishman’ thing, and before he knew what had hit him, so to speak, he found himself behind the German lines in a God-forsaken place in Palestine called Zabala.  Well, to be honest, everywhere in Palestine was pretty God-forsaken: the desert, the weather, the spies, and sand in everything from the moment you got up to the moment when you tried to go to sleep.

The British were in deep trouble because their intelligence network had so many holes in it that it could have done duty as a colander. They had been trying to plug the leaks and find the source of the trouble for months. Then they were presented with a nineteen-year-old scout pilot with a flair for achieving the impossible, right there behind the Hun lines pretending to be a disaffected Britisher happy to throw his lot in with the Kaiser.

Biggles was no fool; he refused to liaise with their unreliable intelligence people, and agreed to go only if he could work with people he trusted. Well, happily, that turned out to be me and, curiously, Major Raymond of Wing Intelligence – well not so curious really; Biggles knew he could trust him, and vice versa.

It took Biggles precisely eleven days to sort it out, and he hated every minute; and when I say hated, I really mean hated. Biggles was a straightforward honest fellow, and to live a double life of deceit and lies was anathema to him. He was no coward – nobody would ever call him a coward – but he did his job living in constant fear, always expecting to be found out, to face a firing squad at dawn. Years later, there were to be unexpected repercussions from this mission. Smarter than the credulous fool in charge at Zabala was one particular intelligence officer: Hauptmann Erich von Stalhein. We were to meet him again.

Job done, we were treated to dinner with the top brass; basically, the general wanted to know how Biggles had done it!  But after dinner, we were both still too wide-awake to go to bed - too well wined and dined, and the adrenalin not yet abated perhaps! We sat outside, in the blissfully cooling desert air of late evening, smoking, in companionable silence. It was Biggles who broke the silence, and I can hear him now, as if it was yesterday.

“I thought I’d shot you down.”

“What are you on about?”

“That day we went to bomb Raymond’s decoy aerodrome, and I led the bomber flight.” He stubbed out his cigarette and lit another one. “We were ready to go home when they suddenly turned up.”

“Who did?”

“Pups, Bristols and a Camel. Raymond had arranged it, I expect – too good an opportunity to miss. I assumed it was you… in that Camel you had at the oasis a few hours earlier. I was sure it was you when the Camel dived at the leader. Just what you’d do, have a go at the leader.”

“Which was you.”

“Exactly. I was paralysed. I knew I had to do something, let you know it was me… if my gunner shot you down, if you shot me down…”

“But I did shoot you down earlier!”

“But then I didn’t know… This time… well… I thought I did know. I fired the red Very light to tell you it was me. Just my luck. It was some sort of signal – they formed a defensive circle, and we dived for home before the British reorganised. But the Camel wouldn’t give up; it followed us and came right in at me. My gunner got it – easy shot. His first kill. He was overjoyed.”

“I can’t really explain… I don’t have the words…” He was silent for a while. “All I could think was that I had brought you out to Palestine and killed you. It was the worst moment of my life.” His voice trembled with emotion, reliving the horror. “But then, they brought the body in. I went to say goodbye… and it wasn’t you.”

I didn’t know what to say. Well that wasn’t really true. I wanted to say it was all right, and so much more; I wanted to put my arms round him and give him a hug, but you didn’t do that sort of thing.

In the end, I made some sort of light remark, and he replied in kind. You couldn’t dwell on these things; you’d end up sent back to H.E., and we both knew that. We finished our cigarettes and turned in. He never mentioned it again.

++++

We thought at first it was an April fool! We were told that we were no longer the R.F.C., but the R.A.F., and a whole lot of naval blokes had been shoved in with us. Not that it made a ha’porth of difference to us; nobody increased our pay; nobody changed anything else as far as we knew, except that patrols became more organised and we were endlessly diverted into trench strafing, something which scout squadrons had largely escaped in the early days. But these changes in air fighting were driven not by what we were named but by the last desperate attempts of the German army to push us back. ‘Offensives’ they called them; just more waste of more young lives; America was now on our side and the Germans never stood a chance.

But it took its toll on us too. There was little worse than running the gauntlet of archie, machine gun and rifle fire as you flew low across enemy trenches shooting at anything you could see, and often what you couldn’t, for hour upon hour. The noise was indescribable and, even when you stopped, your ears continued to ring. All that low-level flying in such conditions was unbelievably stressful. We’d go to bed and sleep after a fashion, diving and twisting and firing in our dreams, then wake up feeling tired. Too many of our friends failed to make it back and we lived with the constant conviction that it had to be our turn next. Then, towards the end of September, things in our sector started to calm down a bit. There was even talk of the end being in sight, although we took that with a pinch of salt.

That was when Biggles met the girl. It only lasted about a week, but a week was long enough. At the time, I couldn’t believe the way I felt and, looking back, I feel even more ashamed than I did at the time. I was hugely, possessively, jealous. I wished her a million miles away; I wished her dead. And that was just what happened, or so we thought at the time because that was what he let us think.

The worst part about it was that I wasn’t sorry, even though I should have been; he was distraught beyond anything I have ever seen in him, before or since. We hardly saw him; he scarcely spoke, not even to me – it seemed particularly, not to me. Mahoney said he was living on whisky and I believed him, but how Biggles managed to fly his Camel all day and get home in some semblance of one piece on such a diet was little short of miraculous. Charmed life? Perhaps so.

I can’t now remember how long this went on – it was just a blur of unhappiness. Rumour said the girl had been a German spy, that the bombs that fell where she lived had been meant for our Mess. But it was only rumour and he wasn’t saying anything.

In the end – and I know this was so because Mahoney told me at the end of the war – to try and stop Biggles from destroying himself, Mullen did the only thing he could: he posted him to H.E. to fetch a new squadron of Snipes. But Biggles being Biggles, he declared he must do one more show with 266 before he left. I eventually found out why… when we got to talk again.

Maybe what happened was for the best. It was a fierce dogfight with planes everywhere and no hope of keeping tabs on anybody, although I tried to watch out for him. The inevitable happened: what he had been seeking for weeks perhaps. He was shot down, his Camel a mass of flames and tangled wreckage. That was that, I thought miserably. He was gone, and all for a girl he had barely known a week.

Whatever Biggles thought about Mahoney’s description, it would appear that he did have a charmed life. He was actually shot down an hour after the Armistice was signed, and somehow managed to crawl out of the wreckage before his Camel went up in flames. Two days later, we got news that he was in a German field hospital awaiting transport back home. He didn’t get off scot-free because he had German bullets in his leg, some broken ribs and multiple cuts and bruises, but at least nobody supplied him with whisky and he had time to reflect.

He appeared to have used that time to good effect because the next time I saw him he was both sober and talking to me. It turned out that the girl was a German spy; her name was Marie, a pretty enough name, and she had fallen for him as much as he had fallen for her. She had escaped the conflagration in the farmhouse because she had been at our aerodrome, waiting for him, wanting to save him from being blown up; but he hadn’t been there, so she’d left a note. He confessed that he’d had nightmares about her being found and shot but also, equally distressful, of all his friends being bombed into oblivion. “I damn near killed you, Algy,” he muttered. ‘Naïve and irresponsible’ were apparently just two of the comments made as he stood to attention in front of Colonel Raymond at Wing Headquarters the next day.

Biggles had never thought to be grateful to the London general who caused him to be sent to Palestine, but Colonel Raymond had declared, with icy clarity, that Biggles was lucky that he, Colonel Raymond, was able to speak up for him and point out his record to the investigating officers.

“Otherwise they might have had me shot as a traitor – and I’d have deserved it. Not that I’d have cared if they had. At the time, me trying to live with me was unadulterated Hell.”

I had an uncomfortable moment when he said she was still alive, but he didn’t suggest looking for her, even though worrying about her was at the back of his desire to do that last show with 266. Maybe the shock of betrayal had brought him to his senses. He did say he wasn’t having anything to do with women, ever again. And he did apologise to me for the way he’d behaved. I almost apologised in my turn, but it didn’t seem a sensible idea to let him know, at that particular moment, what a possessive, selfish person I’d been, especially as he seemed so genuinely pleased to see me and grateful to have someone he trusted to talk to. Not that we talked further about her. That subject was closed until years later. I put it behind me and vowed to do my best for him as we both embarked on a new post-Armistice career in R.A.F. peace-keeping.

++++

Inevitably, there came a time when the R.A.F. decided they no longer wanted us, but that was ok by us; we no longer wanted them. The actual process of demobilisation seemed unnecessarily complicated and rule-bound but we supposed they had their reasons, and eventually, there we were, free to live our own lives, in our civilian clothes and with our gratuities burning holes in our pockets.

It didn’t take long for Biggles to become bored. Inactivity never sat easily with him and in France on days too wet or too snowy for flying, he’d pace up and down, stare out of the window, smoke too much and, latterly, drink too much. His new reformed self – he had sworn solemnly to me that he would never again hit the bottle – precluded the last, but not the rest!

He had a decent-sized flat in Mount Street – bought with the remnants of inherited family money after the solicitors had taken their usual share. I had a small flat just off Baker Street that stretched my allowance more than I cared, but at least it was my own place, away from home and Mother’s tireless efforts to marry me off to some suitable girl. I don’t know why we didn’t pool our resources from the beginning; it would have been sensible in those early days when we were often scratching around for funds. Eventually I did move into his flat – a few years later and, ironically, when neither of us was short of money!

Anyway, getting back to boredom – and I did feel much the same as he – Biggles decided a suitable distraction was a visit to an uncle of his on his father’s side. He had spent time at this uncle’s estate as a boy and had obviously lapped up endless stories of exciting adventures in foreign parts. Dickpa, as he was rather quaintly named by Biggles as a toddler, was wealthy and eccentric but no fool. He had never married; his life was almost entirely dedicated to exploration, mainly in South America, pursuing his carefully researched theories of Inca civilisation.

We got much more than we expected out of that visit: a trip to Brazil all expenses paid, wonderful scenery such as we could scarcely have imagined, danger, excitement, a glimpse of a fabulous ‘lost’ treasure, and, above all, a taste for travel and adventure which totally ruled out any ideas either of us might have had for settling down at home in a steady job.

It suited Biggles down to the ground. For the first time since ‘the girl’ he relaxed and stopped fretting about the past. That didn’t mean the trip was worry-free! There were moments when we were physically uncomfortable – the insect life is ghastly in jungles – and moments when we wondered if we were ever going to make it home in one piece, if at all. But adrenaline is addictive and we were never short of that commodity. We came out of it closer friends than ever, and neither of us even thought of going our independent ways: well I certainly didn’t, and I don’t think he did either.

++++

We didn’t come back from Brazil empty-handed, but living costs were high and our gratuities were small and dwindling. Biggles decided he’d have to look for a job, but that presented problems. Most of what was on offer was on the dull side of boring and, with a poor economic situation and hundreds of demobbed pilots still looking for work, it was an employers’ market. We spent weeks scanning the ads but, to each possibility, Biggles’ response was some version of ‘I couldn’t bear to do that – I’d go crazy inside a week’. However, there came a time when he had to face up to reality. We were both short of money.

We picked the least evil of several, and he applied for a job with an oil prospecting company in British Guiana. They wanted somebody to take air photographs of possible oil-bearing terrain, though it was not in the slightest bit obvious to us how they could tell from a photo whether there was any oil under the ground, under a jungle. But as Biggles said, as long as they were prepared to pay, and let him choose who to take with him, that was ok by him.

Somewhat to our surprise, despite hot competition, he got the job. Maybe it was our experience in Brazil that counted, as most of the chaps applying had only flown in England and France. The company agreed to let him take me as second pilot and also to take a mechanic – even if we had known how, we certainly didn’t intend to do all our own repair work as well as fly! Luckily for us, Biggles’ old fitter from Maranique, Smyth, who’d come with us to Brazil and was worth his weight in gold, was only too pleased to risk his life again. I think Smyth must have soft-pedalled the dangerous parts of our Brazil trip in his accounts to his wife, or maybe Biggles was particularly persuasive, or maybe it was just that the Smyths were short of money too.

Looking back, I think it is true to say that that job marked a turning point in our lives, although, in the end, we didn’t spend very long flying up and down taking photographs of likely bits of jungle. The local agent was more crooked than a dog’s leg and we found ourselves literally left up the creek – or more correctly up a river. But in the end, we did well out of it. Biggles was habitually a peaceable fellow but we had been callously abandoned by the agent and, mindful of our plight, Biggles lost his temper. He demanded and got the plane for ourselves in lieu of pay. But then we had a stroke of luck, meeting the American owner of the company; we did him a good turn and not only were we paid a fee but we received our back pay as well – and kept the aeroplane!

That was a good start. The plane was an amphibian, a Vickers Vandal, and a thoroughly robust old girl she was too. Out of curiosity, with no fixed plans, apart from Smyth having a feeling that one day he ought to get home to his wife, we embarked on a leisurely journey home via Bolivia, Panama, Rarotayo, Port Moresby, Singapore, Penang, Rangoon, etc. It was a wonderful trip:  two old friends from the great war, two lovely girls, …  We must have flown over nearly every sort of scenery and through nearly every sort of weather on the globe! Looking back, my spectacles must be rose-coloured – I most remember the best times; not the heat, the typhoon, the insects in the jungle, and the heart-stopping moment when I thought Biggles might be dead. But we didn’t just have a good time and meet a curious selection of the human race, we came home more than well in profit from our ventures, with enough money to last us for the immediate future – and with an aeroplane of our own! We were never seriously short of money again.

++++

It was in the autumn of 1934 that our lives changed for all time. It started innocuously enough; Biggles rang me up and suggested a joy-ride and a picnic tea; I forget now his excuse for going on a picnic by aeroplane! I expect he said she needed a spin, or we needed a spin – some feeble justification for a whim. But I was willing enough. Unfortunately however, the weather closed in on us whilst over the wilds of East Anglia, and God knows, East Anglia was a desolate and sparsely inhabited place in those days. Of course, only we would land in the midst of a plot, a threat to our country from a foreign power! Or perhaps more correctly, only Biggles would decide to satisfy his curiosity and then get into trouble. Did these happenings just follow us around, I ask myself, or was it Biggles: unendingly curious, forever refusing to accept the obvious, puzzling over anomalies and coincidences; a mind seldom at rest. Certainly we never seemed short of crazy, risk-taking adventures in those days. I have to confess that I enjoyed them too, even when one or both of us was seriously in danger – we always managed to survive somehow; charmed lives, as Mahoney had said.

I see I am digressing again. The person who got Biggles out of trouble this time was not me but a sandy-haired scruffy young lad of fifteen, an aeroplane-mad boy from the north, walking and scrounging his way down to London, mecca of aeroplanes, or so he was convinced. Scruffy he may have been but he was honest, bright and plucky. Ginger – Biggles nicknamed him so, and it stuck – attached himself to us like a limpet! Well, fair enough, we did owe him, and it was difficult to say no when he pleaded to come with us on the second phase of that particular outing. But Biggles had a tremendous tussle with his conscience. Having a strongly ingrained sense of responsibility he worried, quite correctly really, that we had no right whatsoever to be involving an under-age boy in our dangerous plans. I don’t now remember how Ginger managed to persuade Biggles to give way, but he did.

We came out of that in one piece in no mean way thanks to Ginger. The lad had earned his spurs, you might say. Certainly he considered he had earned his place on the team. In fact he swore to me that, for getting him out of a tight corner, Biggles had promised to buy him an aeroplane one day! That seemed rather a rash promise to me. I explained that we simply did what had to be done – rewards didn’t come into it. One day it was Biggles saved, another day me, and Ginger’s turn was bound to come if he stuck around. He was most indignant – I can see him, eyes blazing, hotly declaring: “I didn’t ask him for anything! He just said it.” Poor Ginger, he never did get his own aeroplane but, thanks to us, he learned and experienced things that money could never buy him.

Talking of money, a grateful government paid our expenses, and then some – generously moreover. Because Ginger was under-age, Biggles was given a cheque, to be used for his education in a manner that Biggles judged to be suitable. In due course, Ginger did his training and got his pilot’s licence – and was highly commended for his flying ability. He also did training in ground engineering. He was keen, and soaked up anything to do with aeroplanes like blotting paper, spending every spare moment either trying to persuade Biggles or me to take him up in the Vandal, or hanging around Smyth asking questions, and helping when he was allowed. I always wondered if Biggles had encouraged the lad in this, with a view to having a mechanic to take Smyth’s place one day. Maybe I am just being cynical but we did need to look to the future because Smyth’s wife was expecting a long-awaited second child, and it wasn’t to be expected that she’d view more foreign jaunts with much favour.

There was also the matter of Ginger’s father, and whether he would take exception to his son, still a minor, living with strangers and receiving training in a place hundreds of miles away from his home. However, this proved to be no obstacle – we were never sure whether Ginger’s father just shrugged his shoulders and washed his hands of his son’s future or whether in fact he was proud of Ginger’s successes. Ginger’s father was a miner, he’d had a hard life and didn’t live to be an old man; neither Biggles or I ever met him, but from time to time, father and son did exchange postcards.

Our most immediate problem was where Ginger should stay. The first night, we gave him my bed and Biggles and I curled up in the armchairs – we were both used to sleeping in any manner of bed or bed-substitute. We agonised over this problem for ages that night. We even toyed with the idea of asking the Smyths whether they could take him in for suitable recompense, but Biggles thought, reluctantly, that they wouldn’t have room – and he was right, as usual.

We might have found Ginger a place in a hostel such as those run by the YMCA, or a room in good lodgings, but we both hesitated to abandon the lad just like that. Biggles admitted that his flat was too big for one person, and so if Ginger was to stay with one of us, the logical place was in the Mount Street flat. But Biggles was understandably wary of having the lad with him on his own, and so we agreed a compromise: both Ginger and I would come and live in the flat until Ginger had his qualifications and had come of age, at which point we both assumed he’d be wanting a place of his own.

Although technically Biggles was in charge of his education by virtue of the money bestowed by the government, morally we both felt we were under an obligation to help Ginger to find his feet. There were a lot of adjustments for him to make, as he embarked on a way of life so different from that into which he was born. Thus, a threesome in Biggles’ flat seemed like a good solution. Luckily, Biggles had found himself a wonderful housekeeper, Mrs Symes, who not only kept the house in order, but also cooked uncomplainingly at any hour of the day. She appeared to think that three people were no more trouble than one, and never turned a hair, no matter how long we were away or whatever time we reappeared.

Thus came into being a sort of family: Biggles, me and Ginger. Not quite your conventional family, but nevertheless a family is what we eventually became. But to begin with, inevitably, there was a period of adjustment. It might surprise some of his friends who knew him in the war but, outside our many adventures, Biggles liked a quiet orderly life. I wasn’t so noisy, but my friends would never have described me as orderly in those days. And as for Ginger, well, for a start, there was his addiction to American films and his love of enacting the part of his current hero, complete with American slang and an attempt at the accent. That alone sometimes drove Biggles mad in the early days, if I had not already done so by my untidiness!

Then there was the hero-worship. Biggles suffered more from that than I did. Luckily for me, much of the stuff Ginger had read about us was influenced by things that had happened as a result of Biggles’ natural gift for leadership, plus his superior rank of Major as opposed to me, a mere Captain. Biggles hated it. He didn’t want to be anybody’s hero or to be put on a pedestal. All he ever wanted and expected was to be obeyed. That wasn’t really because he consciously thought of himself as superior, although very much later on in life he did become harder and less tolerant, but it was more that his war experience and rank had conditioned him to being in charge and to expect obedience.

Fortunately, as time went by, Ginger mostly stopped thinking about heroes and hero-worship. He simply settled in, and accepted that we were each part of a team – and we were none of us perfect, not even Biggles – and here I am tempted to say, least of all Biggles! After a while, living together in the flat became normal, and even enjoyable. We each had our privacy in our own bedroom, but companionship was there when we wanted it. There might have been times when Biggles missed his and my close relationship, there were certainly times when I did, but, on the whole, the three of us rubbed along together without serious friction.

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The 1930s were good times for free-lance pilots.  Air travel was becoming popular but for the individual with an aeroplane, regulations were still pretty lax and there was little to stop us going where we wanted, when we wanted. Well perhaps not always quite as easily as that. Our second trip with Dickpa involved the telling of a few white lies by Biggles when we veered off into the unknown over the Himalayas, but for the most part we were able to please ourselves, and few officials cared what we were up to as long as we paid for our aviation fuel and our landing fees!

Thus we were able to travel the world – and we did, sometimes at the behest of others, sometimes by our own choosing. We went to the Tibet/China border to help Dickpa and his friend, we went to Central America largely because Ginger was bored – but honesty forces me to say I was too! We were shipwrecked and ended up in Spain because Biggles was told to take a cruise after he had a recurrence of childhood fever – it was the first attack since he had left India to start school some twenty years earlier which says much for the healing powers of the damp cool climate of north-west Europe. We went to Egypt, the West Indies and the South Seas as a result of a chance meeting; to Africa to look for a father’s lost son; and to Canada to help out our old Great War friend and rival, ‘Wilks’ Wilkinson. We even advertised for charter work and as a consequence fell in with a lovable but crazily eccentric scientist Dr Augustus Duck – or strictly amongst ourselves, Donald!

Then there were the more serious affairs. One of these was almost entirely Biggles’ fault, due to his curiosity, but I must confess that an unfortunate suggestion from myself didn’t help. He had noticed a strange coincidence of misspelling among three S.O.S. messages and was starting to wonder how, why and what, when I suggested he contact Colonel Raymond, our old Wing Intelligence Officer in France. This was a great mistake! Raymond pounced like a cat on a mouse. Biggles, and by association Ginger and myself, found ourselves embroiled in a task which was not of our choosing, nor was it to our taste. Biggles could have said no, but of course he never turned away from a matter of duty to his country; I would not have him any other way and I was the same. Ginger, needless to say, was game for anything!

So off we went to the Indian Ocean on a sort of needle in a haystack hunt, which several times threatened to see us off too. Biggles had under his command a decoy ship and a Royal Navy destroyer, also a temporary appointment to the rank of Air Commodore – all of which impressed Ginger greatly. As it turned out, success came at the cost of lives, lives which Biggles as Commanding Officer felt responsible for. I had not seen him so affected since the end of the war, and it was a side of him hitherto unsuspected by Ginger, for whom Biggles was still the perfect unflappable leader with a solution to every problem. Still… the problem was solved, Biggles survived, we three survived, and the government was duly grateful, although there were no handsome cheques this time round!

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Not very long after Ginger achieved his pilot’s licence and ground-engineer qualifications, we found ourselves up to our necks in trouble of a very different sort. The details of the affair were not so important as the way in which Biggles was persuaded, and the person who did the persuading.

If anybody had troubled to ask me, I would have said that there were two ways to make Biggles do something that he didn’t particularly want to do. The first was to ridicule an idea of his. I well remember this in France when, as an impulsive eighteen-year-old, he boasted he could get us a turkey for 266 Squadron’s Christmas dinner – our Mess waiter having failed to find one. The weather was poor and when he stopped to think about it, he remembered where he’d seen the turkeys – a long way over the lines. He later confessed he was on the point of giving up such an irresponsible show when Mahoney made fun of him on the way to the sheds, and in my presence which made it worse. That was enough to make him decide to go – idiot that he was. I worried, but quite unnecessarily as he got back in one piece with a large cock turkey. Only Biggles would!

The other way was to warn him off. Twice between the wars this happened to us; twice somebody came and put a proposition to us and Biggles turned them down, only to have somebody else warn him not to take on the job. The result was inevitable – he took on the job, and not only that, he didn’t even check with us whether we agreed! Well, he didn’t usually ask Ginger; he didn’t need to ask Ginger; Ginger was always up for anything going. But he did usually ask me, and in fact he had asked me the first time and we had agreed we didn’t need the money and we didn’t want to do it, so I was somewhat aggrieved when he decided we would do it. But it was always the same with Biggles; there was never any point in arguing once he had made up his mind, and I usually fell in with whatever he decided, even when I had reservations. That is not to say that I didn’t voice my opinion; I did, and he always listened; occasionally he even agreed with me!

Anyway, to return to where I was a few paragraphs back: the mystery warning (it was in a phone call from Berlin) turned out to have come from a ghost from the past, Hauptman Erich von Stalhein. Even after all these years I still hesitate to call him ‘gentleman’ although Biggles always saw him so. Von Stalhein was a highly trained, extremely intelligent German intelligence officer, and a typically proud aristocratic Prussian. When Biggles was acting as a double agent at Zabala in 1918, von Stalhein was running his own double-agent act from the same place. It was Biggles’ success in unmasking him that led to the successful conclusion of our Palestine mission and, or so we thought, to the death of von Stalhein.

Right from the start of his arrival in Zabala, Biggles was sure that the perceptive von Stalhein suspected him, but the senior officer on the station, Count somebody-or-other was a conceited fool and Biggles had little difficulty in keeping in his good books. Thus von Stalhein was hampered – both by the Count and by his own principles as a soldier – or so Biggles would always have it.

I met the man only briefly, when he interviewed me after my engine had let me down over Zabala – and even more briefly later on. He was good looking in rather an effeminate way, with a monocle, and a cigarette in an amber holder; yet his tall slim form, military posture and his ice-cold blue eyes belied any weakness. He gave me the impression that I bored him – well, I was only a junior officer in the R.F.C. – but he at least was sufficiently interested to send in Biggles to see if he could get any information out of me. I wondered later whether he was testing Biggles rather than wanting to obtain any meagre crumbs I might have to offer. Biggles got me out of that spot, and burned his own boats in the process, but by then he had worked it all out so it didn’t matter.

Meeting von Stalhein again after nearly twenty years, I was surprised how little he had changed: the same supercilious disdain mixed with a sprinkling of his idea of humour, the same upright military bearing, hair a little greyer, face a little older, but immediately recognisable and still with that hatred of Britain and all things British. That made his attitude to Biggles all the more curious. He seemed to respect him, and indeed I think the feeling was mutual, but that didn’t stop either of them going all out to defeat the other!

It was the first of many encounters: one more before the war, two during it and then countless others afterwards whilst we were in the Air Police. Given the nature of our work, and his, clashes were inevitable but he always came off worst. Biggles declared that von Stalhein’s hatred of everything British following Germany’s defeat in 1918, and his refusal to come to terms with that defeat coloured his whole life thereafter. And that a second defeat in 1945 just made everything worse. Then when he had nowhere else to turn in order to carry on his vendetta against Britain in general and us in particular, it was inevitable that he became embroiled in a number of nasty jobs stemming from various Communist masters.

I do really believe that Biggles was sympathetic. He was quick to point out that we had no idea how we might have behaved had we lost the war, that we didn’t know what it was like to lose everything we held dear. He also observed, and this was most certainly true, that von Stalhein was inevitably handicapped by having to work with too many fools or self-serving individuals; that he lacked a team such as ours, with our tight-knit bonds forged in danger, no one of us seeking to out-do the others, always putting the team and the job before self. This was Biggles’ approach to life and ours too. Whether it was that he attracted people of like mind or that his personality moulded those he worked with, or a bit of both, it is impossible to say.  All I know, and I do know this with certainty, any one of the four of us would have sacrificed himself for the others if it had been necessary, and none of us would ever have abandoned the others under any circumstances.

But I am getting ahead of myself at this point. At the time we discovered that von Stalhein was still alive, we were still a family of three, with our long-suffering mechanic Smyth working with us whenever possible. Indeed, as long as we were based at home in England, his family commitments dovetailed nicely with our needs. It was only going abroad with us that was contentious, especially after his second son was born.

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Another time when we came up against von Stalhein it was at the start of the Second World War – as they eventually called it. We just called it ‘the war’ as, to us, the other was the ‘Great War’, not that there was anything great about it.

Chamberlain’s sober announcement had scarcely finished when the telephone rang. It was, of course, Colonel Raymond; he had, of course, a job for us; needless to say it was pretty close to suicidal. We always got the difficult jobs because ‘they’ had decided long ago that, based on the evidence, Biggles was the most likely person to be able to pull off a mission with a 99 per cent chance of failure.

We were stuck in a secret cave, of all the unlikely places, inside a desolate rocky island, in the Baltic just off the coast of Germany, fully equipped with everything a small fighting unit could want and more. You may think this sounds more like fiction than fact, but the truth was that we were put there, just a few miles from the enemy, to harass him in any way our superiors could devise – they being ensconced in London of course. We had also been told that von Stalhein was in charge just across the water, and everybody agreed that wasn’t good news – well, nearly everybody! I’d swear Biggles eyes sparkled at the idea of going another round with his old enemy.

We started off with a bang, literally! But we didn’t stay secret for long. A series of unlucky chances found us scattered around the neighbourhood of this damned island in what Biggles said was a disorderly manner! The three of us were ‘lost’ first, and Briny our cook went to look for us in a motorboat. We got back to base only to find that we had lost Briny. Biggles went to look for him, but then we lost Biggles. I found Briny and Biggles but in the meantime we had lost Ginger. My most scary moment was when I landed on the top of the damned rock in a snowstorm – well I say landed but really, one minute I was over the sea, the next minute I hit the carpet and was only saved because I accidentally found Ginger! We then met up with Smyth and Briny, and then found an injured Roy (Smyth’s son) who was our wireless operator; I have to add that Roy had lost Smyth and Briny who were looking for a lost Ginger at the time…

It was rather like one of those farces we used to see at the Aldwych in the early 1930s – only this was horribly real. Von Stalhein caught Biggles twice – the first time by a trick, the second by what Biggles later admitted was criminal carelessness on his part. The first time I broke up the party with a well-aimed torpedo. I say well-aimed because it certainly caused enough chaos for Biggles to escape, but had I known he was there I would never have risked it! At the time I thought he was dead and frankly I’d have dropped every explosive device we had on the base on any Nazi target I could find.

The second time von Stalhein, aided by Biggles’ map nicely marked with suitable pencil lines, caught up with Biggles at the base and had another go with the firing squad. This time it was Ginger’s turn to come to the rescue, conveniently returning at the critical moment. If I didn’t dislike the man so much, I might almost have been sorry for von Stalhein; he so nearly got rid of Biggles not once but twice within twenty four hours!

As is usual in farces, there was a happy ending: we all got home safely. Biggles had been, unusually for him, depressed at what he felt was a failure on his part: the short time the base had lasted. But he needn’t have worried! The powers-that-be were delighted with what we had achieved; indeed Colonel Raymond had the cheek to tell us that he didn’t think we’d last more than 24 hours and he had never expected to see any of us again! I found myself wondering whether, had Biggles been killed, it would really have been worth it to them when they weighed up the plus and minus points. He had to be one of their very best officers, and it seemed a big risk to me for small return. What is worth risking an exceptional officer’s life for? Apparently, a submarine, a railway tunnel, a flying boat, sidings, warships, a German codebook. I suppose it did look pretty impressive when totted up; in war, you can’t always protect your best friend, however much you want to.

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There was an element of farce in our next assignment, but really it was just a glorified paper chase. We’d gone to Finland as part of a group of volunteers, to help them in their struggle against the Russians, but we became involved in a Polish scientist’s dying wishes.

Biggles knelt in the snow with our brandy bottle and tried to revive him but it was almost a thankless task: he had been hit by a bullet. However, before he expired he gave away the hiding place of the papers, and that was that, so we thought. Biggles inevitably asked about the papers when we got back, especially as we had been chased off the carpet by a Messerschmitt – we were in a Blenheim. But when Biggles mentioned the name of the scientist, it turned out he was well known to British Intelligence.

It was our usual infernal luck that when we crashed the Blenheim – or to be more truthful, when Biggles crashed the Blenheim – we found ourselves prisoners of von Stalhein – having twice got away from him! Needless to say, Biggles dreamed up a plan for rescuing us, involving him pretending to show von Stalhein where the papers were, then having a sledge ride, then… Well, it all worked out for the good, despite Biggles being knocked unconscious in an avalanche, despite his jacket being under the avalanche, and that he declared himself  fit to fly… Ginger was next in line when Biggles didn’t make it back, then it was me, but we all got home in the end – no little thanks to Smyth. Oh yes, and we rescued the papers!

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Biggles was then sent to Norway – on his own. This was all to do with the probabilty of the Nazi forces invading, or maybe our forces landing. But suffice it to say, Biggles was caught on the hop. In fact he had just finished his assignment and was about to have a short break before going back to France when the Nazis invaded – Ginger and I being in France at the time. He was lucky, or unlucky depending how you want to view it, to be on his way to Sweden as the nearest friendly country when he was apprehended without a passport or papers of any sort at the border. Biggles resorted to his old friend, bluff, and asked to be taken to the British Consul who he declared would vouch for him.

Well, Biggles didn’t get quite what he’d bargained for. When he was told he could have a phone call to Colonel Raymond, he happened to drop into the conversation that he’d been appointed to the Nazi Air Force – need I say more! Raymond sent him back to Boda, where he’d just left, with instructions to look for any number of things that might be useful to potential invading forces.

Biggles did have the presence of mind to ask if he could be put in touch with Ginger and myself, though, and Raymond explained that with things in Norway the way they were, he had already pulled us out of France. We were both sent to Norway on an aircraft carrier but it didn’t work out as planned of course. These things seldom do!

It turned out that Biggles had, amongst other things, been asked to look for ‘himself’, and by von Stalhein, at that. Biggles walked into the schoolroom, where I was taken prisoner after my pilot’s engine was shot to bits, as if he owned the place. I had at least a few moments’ warning! When he stopped in front of me and did a double-take, I had to hand it to him; his capacity for bluff didn’t desert him. “Haven’t I seen you before somewhere?”

“You may have seen my picture in the papers,” … “I won the world championship at snakes and ladders – up one minute and down the next.”…

It was curious seeing how Biggles worked. He had a plan, which involved ‘himself’ escaping, and that plan of course involved me escaping with the others, but not him.

Anyway, somehow or other, he was flown back to Boda, where he borrowed an aeroplane to fly to Stavanger. During an air raid at Stavangar, Biggles took von Stalhein’s plane. Ginger, who had been waiting at Fjord 21 and was watching Biggles pancake on the fjord in von Stalhein’s plane, had asked if that was usually how he landed. He got a reply of sorts, and then a request for food! Ginger then explained that he and Biggles couldn’t go home because I’d gone to Boda. Further, Ginger explained how I’d been dropped by parachute at Boda! The upshot was that Biggles sent Ginger home with the Stavanger information, then spent all day hoping against hope I’d turn up. Which of course I didn’t. He then got Ginger to drop him by parachute at Boda, the last place he wanted to be…

I was hanging around Boda aerodrome looking for Biggles when I saw a car drive up. It was von Stalhein’s car. Then suddenly I saw Biggles, breaking cover... I calmly took von Stalhein’s car and drove it to where Biggles was now standing pistol in hand, waiting, thinking I was von Stalhein.

“Can I give you a lift?”

Biggles stood there for split second before flinging himself into the car. “Anywhere,” he gasped.

It was a minute before Biggles spoke. It took him that long to recover. Then he said something along the lines of ‘what the dickens was I doing there at that time’, and I answered something along the lines of ‘just hanging around in case I was needed’. Well, I mean to say, what else could I say! We continued in that vein for a sentence or two, or three. I can hear it now.

Biggles “You know to whom it belongs?”

“Too true I do. I saw von Stalhein get out.”

Biggles laughed hysterically. “Strewth! Last night I pinched his plane; now we’ve got his car. We shall have to drop him a line and thank him for providing us with transport.”

To cut a long story short, we decided to go to Oslo, but on the way, there was a bombing raid on Boda. I remember enquiring of Biggles whether we should stop and watch it, but he said he’d had enough of that at Stavangar to last him a long time.

The most important thing was that the planes which Biggles remembered seeing in Oslo harbour were not there! After listening to some soldiers for a few minutes, Biggles decided to go back to the car but, on the way, he suddenly lashed out at somebody, much to my bewilderment. Amazingly, it was Brandt, whose existence I was unaware of, and whose presence was a bit of an embarrassment. To Biggles’ credit, he didn’t give a damn what we did with him except that we shouldn’t leave him in Oslo. We manhandled his unconscious body into the back seat, and I was given the job of watching him. On the way we left him, still dazed, by the side of the road.

Hours later, or so it seemed, we came across the German army, but there was to be no joy there as the British had been repulsed. A sergeant advised us to turn right, out of the battle zone, now no more than barriers, and agreed with Biggles that if we turned left again further on it should bring us back to the coast.

Thus we started our long and tortuous journey home! The first snag was that Fjord 21 was occupied by a squadron of Dorniers; the second was that Ginger brought back a squadron of fighters but all they did, apart from get rid of the Dorniers, was throw up a smokescreen; the third was that I stupidly threw off my greatcoat ‘disguise’ and got myself captured; the fourth was that when Biggles reappeared he was put in charge; the fifth was that we accidentally came by information that made our lives of secondary importance; the sixth was that when a pilot, Schaffer, landed, his suspicions were raised as Biggles was wearing his uniform; the seventh was when Schaffer invited Biggles to come to Oslo; the eighth was, well I didn’t know what was the eighth or the ninth but I was fast running out of fingers.

I estimate that it was about the tenth or eleventh snag when von Stalhein left a too conveniently placed boat, to say nothing of a ladder, for Biggles to find. Biggles made light of it, but knowing him as well as I did, I could sense his inner disappointment, especially as von Stalhein assured us he had Ginger as well, on his way here.

‘What were we going to do?’ I asked the question, well many questions really. Biggles smiled faintly as he told me what my part was going to be. Sure enough it worked; the sentry fell for it; then Biggles took his place. The escort party fell for it too. We tied them up, and then it was all over bar the shouting, and a little matter of Ginger being shot in the shoulder. We got away in the one and only Dornier – belonging to von Stalhein.

When we eventually came down and were ‘captured’ by a British destroyer, Biggles introduced himself as Bigglesworth… and that was it. Not only had the Skipper heard of him, he identified him as the Intelligence Officer who’d got the message through to the fleet, from Norway. We even got to have dinner with Raymond!

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Biggles was put in charge of his own squadron, R.A.F. 666 Rawlham. But this wasn’t to be an ordinary squadron. Once the ‘Battle of Britain’ was over, we became a special duties squadron, with Biggles, providing his own brand of leadership mixed with consultation.

One of our first tasks was to be in the Libyan desert, protecting the air transports in the desert that were for some reason not getting through. Salima Oasis was our base’s name and it was certainly desert-ified enough. Kharga was the other base but that was relatively civilised. Part of the squadron was left there; the rest moved on to Salima.

The first thing Biggles did was to deliver a lecture, although he didn’t call it that. What he said was brief and to the point. If we were to survive any length of time, there were a few basic rules to be observed; like, never taking water for emergencies but using it as a fundamental resource; anybody using the oasis needed to ensure that wheeltracks were obliterated – and so on.

Biggles suggested that we should make a start by a reconnaissance of the ground from the air. He proposed that I should take the eastern section along with Tug, Bertie should take the north, Tex should take the south, and he’d take Ginger on the western section. That drew a blank. However, before lunch we had a bit more luck. Biggles received a coded message from Flight-Sergeant Smyth to say that a Dragon, bearing an important General was due, and that we should – that is Bertie and I – take over from Biggles and Ginger when they delivered it, if they delivered it.

Bertie and I were waiting for the Dragon to appear, with increasingly anxiety, when Biggles came back. In answer to his urgent question, Smyth checked his compass and found that there was nothing wrong. Biggles looked astounded, but then of course realised what must have happened – ‘they’ had switched on a magnetic beam, and then switched it off once it had achieved its object. Biggles said he would wait until four o’clock, then go and hunt for Ginger on his own because, as he said, he didn’t feel like sacrificing more than one plane till he knew for sure. At that point we went in for a very delayed lunch.

To cut a long story short, Biggles found Ginger, and he and Ginger found out a lot more besides, including the person in charge, one von Zoyton. The tale unfolded in its normal way, apart from Biggles’ head being grazed by a bullet! Biggles and Ginger parachuted in and, while Biggles destroyed their radio and its beam, and then rescued the prisoners, Ginger was put in charge of the Rapide. However, the original pilot of the Rapide was amongst those prisoners, and so Ginger was freed, and thus he was the person who saw Biggles fall, the only person who did. He dragged an unconscious Biggles to the palm trees but before giving himself up, he applied first aid and was relieved to hear Biggles groan and open his eyes. They worked their way round, slowly, to the camel lines, and then they escaped on a couple of camels, until they were in turn rescued by the armoured car – we had appropriated that one – and they all made it back to Salima.

Before this point, I was packed off to Kharga, so I wasn’t present when the first stage of the battle for Salima was started, but we arrived back in time to make the critical difference. When we came back from chasing them back towards their base, not knowing what had happened at Salima, it was to find that Biggles was sound asleep under the palm trees, and he had left instructions for me to carry on! I told Smyth to let him sleep – he slept right through most of the day. The only thing remaining was for Biggles to organise the final blow to von Zoyton’s squadron. His one remaining Spitfire led the four Kharga Spitfires to Wadi Umbo, and that was that really – the only thing of note being that we didn’t interfere when he and von Zoyton did their dance of death! Such was our confidence in our leader.

++++

The funny thing was that when the moment came which I had been unconsciously dreading, I wasn’t even prepared. I was just opening the post in the normal manner, and the buff slip came with everything else. I picked it up and read ‘You are promoted to Squadron Leader with effect from to-day…’ I looked at it in disbelief. At that point there was an interruption. Ginger came in and groped for a chair – I say groped because I dare say there was an expression on my face which he hadn’t seen before, but I was not conscious of it. Then there was another interruption, this time Bertie. I don’t remember much about that, except that I do remember telling him to push off or words to that effect, or come in and sit down. He came in and sat down.

I repeated what the buff slip said – that it had hit me like a ton of bricks, that the shock had rather knocked me off my pins, but that there had been warning signs when I looked back. I summarised what I knew. Ginger put in what he knew. Bertie couldn't believe it…

In the end we decided to go to see Air Commodore Raymond, and after the usual ‘fencing’, the Air Commodore came to a decision. He decided that we were to be trusted, and told us all he knew. It was twelve o’clock by the time he finished, and I said we’d put together a plan and bring it back to him by two o’clock – which we did. We were stuck for a pilot, so the Air Commodore volunteered Henri Ducoste, the pilot of an old Berline Breuet, who had volunteered for the Biggles show. Raymond then pushed us away saying he had work to do…

We were expecting to hear from Ducoste by phone but he came over in person. He was only nineteen, slim and a native of Monégasque. His enthusiasm was infectious. He calmly told us that we had three options: the Californie option which he was not in favour of, another airport which was miles away, and the parachute drop. It was in speaking of his mother and his little sister Jeanette – his father was dead – that I asked him where they lived, little dreaming of how useful that would turn out to be. Anyway, we opted for the parachute drop, as we had Ginger’s onions and Bertie’s guitar to cater for, and Henri assured us there would be no trouble getting into Monaco down the disused railway.

It all added up to a satisfactory plan. The three of us were going to do our own thing and then compare notes in Monaco. Only it didn’t work out quite as planned because Ginger, who went first, got into trouble first; then Bertie went second and got into trouble next, but not as much as Ginger… Myself, I went third and got myself into a bit of a scrap at Jocks Bar with Signor Gordino but managed to extricate myself. Curiously, it was by way of being at the Californie beach near Nice that I found out that it was definitely not on as a landing ground – some workmen were digging trenches across the area, just as Henri had predicted.

To meet with the others was next on my list of things to do – in fact, I didn’t really have a list any longer. Just a problem – was Gordino lying in wait for Biggles? I hoped that Bertie and Ginger would be able to enlighten me, and that there’d be something in blue with a triangle on the wall at the Quai de Plaisance. How I got to Monaco is a tale in itself, but not for this time. I was there by eight-ish, expecting to see one or both of them, but by then it was too late to explore the wall by torchlight, and I felt that a torch would draw attention to me.

I did, however, see a girl in a blue shawl writing on the wall the following morning, after I had a swim in the sea in lieu of a wash. They were blue letters, a message, CASTILLON. AU BON CUISINE. MAYDAY. And the girl in the blue shawl, well, she hadn’t actually signed the blue triangle, but she had departed in a rush. I felt sure the message must have come from Biggles but by the time I had gone back and re-read it, and thought about it, she had of course disappeared… But the aviation link was there – “m’aidez” meaning “help me”.

The trouble was not knowing where she’d gone. I enquired of an evil-faced fisherman, but he was not saying anything, and when I asked about Castillon he seemed to be enjoying some private joke. I concluded that he was mad. However, when I eventually got to Castillon, I understood. Everything.

In the meantime Bertie arrived in Castillon. He made a better go of it than I did – I having been incarcerated in a dark cellar. Moreover, he established friendly relations from the word go. By the time I’d been fetched by Mario, he and ‘the princess’ were almost bosom pals.

“I am going to show you something…”

I went down the steps first… “Great heavens!” … “Biggles!”

He was hardly recognisable as the same person who had left Rawlham only two weeks previously. His emaciated face was covered by a fortnight’s stubble of beard and he was clad in an old boiler suit, his R.A.F. uniform lying on the floor beside him. But the eyes he turned on his visitors were clear.

We all wanted to talk at once, but Biggles got us organised – and he presented us to the princess. The next morning just before dawn, Mario came into the cellar where we were sleeping, and informed us he’d heard somebody approaching, slowly. But we needn’t have worried. It was Ginger with Henri, who had by this time more or less collapsed. We took them both back to the cellar, and the princess examined Henri, but it was not that the wound was infected, just that he was suffering from shock, and in an ideal world should see a doctor. Biggles shook his head. Biggles and the rest of us agreed that it wouldn’t do Henri any good sending him back to be shot.

At that point, Mario came rushing in, again, to say that there were flying boats overhead. We all dashed outside and, sure enough, there were, and while we were watching they came down at Monaco. To be honest, Biggles took over after this! He, Bertie and Ginger went with Mario, to be responsible for picking up info on the Savoia flying boats, but in fact they happened to see a notice which affected them, or rather Henri, Madame Ducoste and Mademoiselle Ducoste. In essence it gave two alternatives: either Henri or his mother and sister would be shot.

There was to be no possibility of either as far as Biggles was concerned. Biggles and Ginger returned in the uniforms of Italian soldiers – and with Madame Ducoste and Jeanette! That was essentially it. Like all Biggles’ schemes it came to a successful conclusion, allowing for a bit of leeway here and there. Nine people set off in an Italian seaplane and nine people got down, albeit in Algiers, where a week was spent in various ways while we waited for a homeward-bound troop-carrier.

++++

One of our hardest missions was nearly my last. We were posted to the Mergui Archipelago. Biggles and I had been in that area before with Ginger, and from the start I knew it would be uncomfortable; jungle: heat, humidity, biting and stinging wildlife. All that plus the squadron being on the doorstep of the Japs in both Burma and Malaya. As for the actual assignment, even Biggles was somewhat daunted by the prospect of having to move five thousand tons of rubber, from under the enemy’s nose, a thousand miles across the India Ocean to Madras.

We managed it of course. Biggles always could think of a way of achieving the apparently impossible and, this time, it included using teak logs to turn a stretch of water into an airstrip for land aircraft, and commandeering a ship with a capacity of a thousand tons. For myself, it was a mission never to be forgotten. A Jap fighter forced me down into the sea and I was taken to the local base for questioning. The Japs were already in a flat spin as a result of our activities, and the top chap was more than ready to do his worst to somebody he viewed as either an information source or disposable. They were, literally, on the point of chopping off my head when Biggles intervened.

I think I quite lost my reason and tore round like a madman looking for the chap who’d ordered me to be beheaded. I suppose it was a reaction to relief and anger but I don’t remember much, other than that I failed to find him. Eventually I calmed down and when we got back to base we found Biggles’ usual luck was in evidence. The ship was back for another load, her cargo having been transferred to the Royal Navy.

While she was being reloaded, we were hanging around, taking it in turns to patrol, looking out for enemy planes. Biggles had insisted; he had been unusually bad-tempered that morning when he came back from his patrol. I supposed he was tired, and anxious; there was so much resting on his decisions. Next time I looked round he had vanished.

I eventually found him, sitting on his own on an empty packing case, smoking; or at least he was holding a smouldering cigarette, but his eyes and his mind were focussed elsewhere, the ash simply falling onto the ground.

I sat down on the next case. “Am I intruding?”

“Of course not! How could you ever think…”

“What’s the matter, Biggles?”

“Nothing.”

I remember mentally rolling my eyes and thinking how impossible he could be sometimes. “Do I have to do my ‘I know you as well as you know yourself’ act then?”

“Really, it’s nothing, I’m just being stupid.”

“Tell me,” I insisted. I knew something was troubling him and I wasn’t going to let him avoid my question.

He took a deep breath, looked at his dying cigarette, dropped it and ground it under his heel. I waited, expecting him to light another, but he didn’t. He lifted his head and a pair of distressed eyes looked into mine.

“If we had been ten seconds later, or if I had missed…”

“But you weren’t… and you didn’t.”

“Yes… well… I told you I was being stupid, but… just can’t get that damned image out of my mind. So nearly too late.”

I put my hand over his hand and we gripped each other’s. The last time we had done that was at an oasis in the Palestinian desert; The Great War; emotions were to be controlled, not displayed – the soldier’s mantra.

“I understand.” I spoke softly. “But we have to move on, have get on with the job.”

He gave me a faint and rueful smile. “Yes, of course. But… thanks anyway.”

++++

When we started out in the Air Police, it was pretty good: a team effort with the perfect team leader. But as time went by – and goodness knows it was long enough, getting on for twenty years when Biggles and I eventually retired – the emphasis changed. More and more we ceased to be a team of four but became two teams of two: Biggles and Ginger, Bertie and me.

Don’t get me wrong; there was nothing wrong with Bertie as a colleague and friend. Quite the reverse in fact. Bertie was sharp-witted, knowledgeable, reliable, a superb pilot, a deadly accurate shot, and excellent company. He hid all this under a veneer of buffoonery and self-deprecation, and many the criminal was fooled into thinking Bertie was a push-over. In fact I couldn’t have wished for a better companion, but I missed working with Biggles and I became bored with my all-too-frequent role ‘back at base’, listening for the phone, checking for radio contact, passing on messages, filling in the long hours of waiting with tedious – albeit necessary – sorting, noting, filing.

Looking back, I suppose it was the uncertainty that was the worst part. The other three might be scattered across the globe, and I usually hadn’t a clue whether they were safe, how the job was progressing or when they were coming home. Throughout two wars and the period in between them, we were nearly always together, Biggles and I. We watched out for each other; that was part of our friendship, our bond; I missed it when it ceased to be our routine.

I understood well enough. Biggles wasn’t blind, nor was he uncaring of how I felt; he went to great lengths to explain that he needed his second-in-command in reserve; if something happened to him, I would be the one to take over. He said he trusted me above any other; he said he didn’t need to worry if he knew I was there to step in if needed. I knew he was right but that didn’t help. However, I just carried on, saying nothing, but minding more than I cared to admit, even to myself.

Was I jealous of Ginger in his privileged position as ‘first choice’ and nearly always in the second pilot’s seat? Of course I was – that was my seat and it had always been my seat and in my mind it had always been going to be. But it wasn’t – not any more. I realised eventually that Biggles was training Ginger to take over when he retired. Somebody would have to and, having put a great deal of effort into the Air Police setup over the years, Biggles wanted to leave it in safe hands. Ginger was just the right age and just the right person, but I am ashamed to say it didn’t really make me feel any better. My problem was that I was too possessive.

++++

There were other occasions when I played a more important role: in the Gobi Desert, and in France, for example. The Gobi Desert was the more important one, perhaps, in that it didn’t have Biggles playing the number one part! Also I had a taste of what it is like to be in command. The missionaries, for that is what they were, were at the Caves of a Thousand Buddahs at Nan-hu, and awaiting rescue – if they were lucky. The only fly in the ointment was that four white men and the Abbot and had already been captured and taken to Tunhwang, and it wasn’t clear how easy it was going to be to get them out.

The first few days were trouble-free and, had things stayed that way, we would have been fine. But Ginger decided to take his towel and have a wash, just at the wrong moment. The local terrorising officer Ma Chang arrived with three soldiers and they obviously were in no hurry to leave. In fact, when they saw Ginger, they ambushed him! However, scarcely had I realised what was happening and snapped off a shot from my pistol when there was an interruption from five Kirghiz, and the whole affair descended into revenge-killing. Three of the soldiers were killed at the cost of one injured Kirghiz. Unfortunately, the one who got away was Ma Chang.

The next thing was that Ming came back with bad news. The prisoners at Tunhwang were being moved that night, which meant that they would be setting off at midnight, in a cart with an escort of half a dozen armed soldiers. Ginger and I discussed it because clearly any rescue would have to be that night. Ginger came up with a plan and together we refined it – money and fighting were to be the key elements. I worked out that the British Government would very happily drop a thousand taels, about one hundred pounds, if one of us were to go with the raiding party. Ginger said it was his idea and that he was going – he was successful!

In his absence, I had difficulty sleeping, got dressed and went to wait for Ginger to return. I had the shock of my life when Ma Chang turned up with a force of a dozen men at least; they were obviously going to attack the guest-house; I instructed Ming to warn Ginger and his rescued prisoners not to approach the oasis but then settled back to watch the abortive attack on the guest-house. Funnily enough, the truth of the matter didn’t occur to me straight away. It was only when I saw them unpack some boxes, carefully, that I asked one of the missionaries what was in them, only to receive the answer, dynamite! And coils of wire for setting off the dynamite. That was enough for me – I gave instructions to the missionaries to go to the only place of safety there was, a ruined tower. Then I watched. One dynamite pack was placed in the guest-house and a coil of wire was uncoiled. But then, to my surprise, the soldiers all went off to eat their breakfast, under the shade of some trees about one hundred yards away.

My plan was a daring one. I worked out that the chances of being seen were minimal. There was plenty of cover. It remained to utilise it to get to the dry grass on which the dynamite had been left along with the coils. It was an exciting moment! It all worked to perfection, even better than that, as it was thought to be an accident. I retired to the cliffs, and met up with the other five – and Ming, and then Ginger and his party. We were just congratulating each other when there was the most incongruous sound imaginable: a bell.

The bell was rung by a monk. It was a message for the Englishman at Nan-hu, written by Biggles on a leaf of his notebook. Biggles and Bertie had trouble with their machine, and were grounded fifty miles south of Nan-hu. The message was dated five days previously. To say that I was in shock was putting it mildly. However, when Ginger and I discussed it, and after I had vetoed his idea that we go and look for Biggles and Bertie, we came to no great decision. I gave instructions to complete the runway and that was that.

While we were having our evening meal, the first interruption occurred; ‘our’ Kirghiz galloped back and demanded food, which we were forced to give them. They then picked up their wounded companion, and the Chinese horses and were away. Not long after that, we had our second interruption, from seven more Kirghiz demanding food. I longed for a machine gun. I grimly pointed out that there’d be no more food after this because we had none.

The next day, there was suddenly a disturbance. The Kirghiz were back having joined up together, but they were not alone; they were being hounded and were outnumbered by a troop of Chinese soldiers, commanded by Ma Chang. We could only watch from the caves as the Kirghiz were hunted down and massacred. But worse was to come. Ma Chang found a packet of English cigarettes from the food cartons we had been forced to hand over the previous night.

However, all was not lost – in the midst of the chaos, who should arrive but Biggles and Bertie, early! Biggles gave instructions and we fell in with them, not a problem – and I had the memorable satisfaction of killing Ma Chang.

++++

It must have been not long after that, that Biggles got a visit from Fritz Lowenhardt. It wasn’t surprising, really, that eventually we all went off to rescue von Stalhein from Sakhalin prison. Being second in command, of course, I didn’t get to see much of the action which suited me fine, but Biggles was less well off, I rather think. He was looking for a peaceable commitment from von Stalhein, and a guarantee that he wouldn’t work against us any more. He wasn’t so sure he’d get it.

Much to my – or perhaps I should say our – surprise, not only did von Stalhein give us his word, he said that “it is a pity we didn’t reach this understanding some time ago.”

++++

The ultimate test came a few years after that. We were having a quiet time in the office which made Biggles’ behaviour the more obvious. He seemed to retire into himself, and stopped speaking to us, preferring to bury himself in maps of Eastern Europe. This went on for about a week. But towards the end of the second week, I could bear the uncertainty no longer. I challenged him.

“Look Biggles; we’ve had about enough of this. What’s the matter with you?”

The result was predictable. Nothing. Or nothing that we had any hand in. It all came down to news von Stalhein had given him regarding Marie Janis.

Biggles may have taken some persuading, but once started it didn’t take much encouragement to tell us more – in particular Bertie who was sympathetic. I was frankly discouraging. I couldn’t see that he needed to follow von Stalhein out to Czechoslovakia at all, let alone for a German spy who once nearly had him shot. Biggles and I started one of those ridiculous conversations where neither of us wants to give in. It took Bertie a little time as peacemaker to restore order.

A week or ten days later, I forget which, Biggles made some decisions about going to Czechoslovakia. Bertie volunteered with his passport – Lord Lissie, Chedcombe Manor; occupation, gentleman. Although Biggles didn’t accept him as a volunteer, he noticeably softened his attitude towards Bertie, and Ginger to a lesser extent. They were not forever being negative! The curious thing was that it was I who had word from von Stalhein: ‘A. Lacey Esq.’. It was a picture postcard from Rodnitz, of the Café Wagner, with a simple message on the reverse. _The wine here is excellent_ , Biggles read slowly aloud.

To sum up, Biggles decided to approach the Air Commodore and ask for two or three weeks leave. Obviously he wasn’t going to express his real reason, that of going to Rodnitz, and I was quite surprised the Air Commodore didn’t question him more closely, but the Chief did have a lot on his plate at the time. The amazing thing was that Biggles got away with it; Bertie too.

They were gone about a week. Bertie duly arrived home with instructions from Biggles, to buy a Dove and take it out to Rodnitz, along with Ginger… I noticed that I wasn’t included but maybe that was because I was being kept in reserve… It transpired that everything went off swimmingly except for Biggles being shot in the shoulder. This time it was more serious and he came home with his arm in a sling after two weeks in hospital. No false heroics there. But I wasn’t in London by then.

++++

I was glad to escape from London before Biggles came back from hospital in Nancy. I knew I had behaved badly, and when Raymond decided I should be the one to go to India to sort out a gold smuggling problem, I jumped at the chance. At least I wouldn’t have to witness her success in trapping him again.

The details are not important. It was the sort of assignment that we got from Raymond quite often and, whilst I didn’t spot the answer instantly, it eventually became pretty obvious what was going on. In fact, I was enjoying the challenge and being my own boss for a change. I was investigating a small airstrip in the jungle to the north west of Shara, an insignificant aerodrome in northern India. The first time I had landed, somebody took a pot shot at me; only a rifle but I assumed the worst. I was damned if I was going to be shot at, so I flew down to Calcutta and borrowed a Hawker Hunter fighter from the Indian Air Force. Next time, I’d shoot back!

Pride comes before a fall, they say. I was flying over the usual sort of impenetrable jungle and almost at the airstrip when disaster struck. First the engine coughed and died – whatever the enemy had put in the petrol, it effectively rendered the Hunter helpless. I looked frantically round to see if I could make it to the airstrip, and I might just have done so with a bit of luck, but Lady Luck appeared to be on the side of the godless that day. The next thing I heard was the rattle of machine-gun fire and an unknown type of aircraft swept down and raked the Hunter from nose to tail. And there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it; my guns were no use in a fighter plane with a dead engine and I ground my teeth in impotent rage.

The next thing I knew, the tops of the trees were brushing my wings. The Hunter went through that jungle forest like a knife through butter, shedding bits as it went; it simply went to pieces around me. I was briefly conscious of the noise of splintering trees, the shuddering fuselage, and my body being battered and tossed – then nothing, or nothing that I remember.

I regained consciousness a day later, or so my ‘guardian angel’ told me afterwards, but at the time all I was conscious of was pain; pain such as I had never known in my entire life. My whole body throbbed in agony… Well, no point in dwelling on this as I survived, thanks to being dug out by Mahomad Khan who just happened to be hunting near the spot where I was buried in a tangle of wreckage. My leg was trapped under the engine so it was not surprising that it was badly broken – and I prefer not to dwell on what it felt like to have one’s doubly broken leg set in splints without any anaesthetic.

I read this through and wonder what I am making so much fuss about – I was alive and Mahomad looked after me as if I had been his only son. We realised my attackers were still looking for me, but the jungle closes over its intruders; they couldn’t see anything. This was the worrying bit. I realised that if anybody came looking for me, they wouldn’t see anything either, especially as I had, foolishly, left no record of where I was going. I was too confident and I had understimated my enemy.

So it was little short of a miracle that about twenty five days after the crash an Auster flew overhead – and not just any Auster but one of ours! It landed on the airstrip which turned out to be only about a mile from my jungle hospital bed. Alas, my hopes were dashed – it took off again! But the next morning it came back. My joy knew no bounds. They had come to look for me and by some miracle had found me! I had sent Mahomad up to the airstrip to see what was going on, and then all I could do was wait.

Some while later, I heard voices, people coming down the track. Which of them would it be, I wondered. After all I had said to Biggles, would he have been unwilling to face me and have sent Bertie and Ginger? My heart gave a lurch as his familiar figure appeared first and he broke into a run when he saw me. Falling to his knees he squeezed my hand, “Algy!”

I don’t remember what I said – something banal probably. Nor do I have much memory of the ensuing conversation other than that I told them what had happened to me and they told me how they had found me. I think I must have been suffering from shock, relief, and thankful that Biggles and I were having a perfectly normal conversation.

I couldn’t walk with the splints on; they couldn’t carry me up a steep jungle path; so we agreed they’d come back in a five days, and I’d get myself to the airstrip – somehow. And I did, though I have to say it was not exactly an enjoyable experience. Bertie landed the Auster and Biggles stayed up high. He’d borrowed another fighter – he wasn’t taking any chances. The weather was deteriorating which was bad enough without that damned plane turning up at the critical moment, which of course it did.

It was a hair-raising take-off with the attacking plane thinking it had an easy kill. But no problem for Biggles watching over us from above like a mother hen. It was an easy shot – can’t think why he was worrying that he might miss! But that was typical of him at that time; he was a mixture of confidence and worry, and we didn’t go round shooting down planes any longer. In fact it must have been goodness knows how many years since either of us had engaged in serious combat.

Back at civilisation – well Shara seemed like civilisation after thirty one days in the jungle – it seemed that everybody wanted to look after me! Eventually we all retired to bed. It was another of those occasions when every word was imprinted on my mind – or maybe it wasn’t, maybe I have imagined some of it, but I think I remember.

I was tired but I couldn’t get to sleep. Earlier rain had hardly changed the sticky heat for the better, and it still felt unbearably hot and humid. My leg ached after being dragged up that abominable valley and then forced to carry me to the waiting Auster with more haste than it felt able to.

Two a.m. and I was still awake! In the end I put the bedside lamp on and reached for my book; but I had scarcely read a couple of pages when a huge moth flew in through the window and did its best to commit suicide against the lamp, only to be followed by others equally hell-bent. Sighing in frustration, for to shut the window would mean I’d have to get out of bed, I was about to give up the unequal struggle when there was a tap at the door. It opened a trifle. “Algy, can I come in? I saw your light.”

“Biggles! You’re still awake.” I stated the obvious. He’d surprised me; I imagined he and Bertie had long since gone to sleep.

“Too hot. And… something I wanted to say.” Biggles flicked ineffectively at the moths, then turned off the lamp. He crossed to the window and opened the curtains wide. Scudding clouds were crossing the face of a full moon, bright in the gaps between the clouds. “Maybe they’ll go out towards the moonlight and leave us in peace.”

He came over to the bed and perched on one side, drawing his knees up and folding his arms round them – fortunately I had the double, “might be more comfortable old boy,” had been Bertie’s solicitous thought.

I waited.

“I just wanted to apologise.”

“What for?”

“Everything you said, about me dashing off to Czechoslovakia without a thought as to what might happen if we got into trouble, and deceiving Raymond, and how it might affect the unit. You said ‘Irresponsible, thoughtless; putting a Hun spy who betrayed you before your friends who have trusted you and been unendingly loyal; to say nothing of aiding a man who spent most of his working life trying to kill you. That’s what you said and you were quite right.”

“Raymond said a version of it; he wasn’t pleased – not pleased at all, and he was right too. But… well it was ok for him to say it, I expected him to. But when you said it I felt dreadful, and I wanted to say I was sorry, that I hadn’t meant to, I’d just promised I’d help if Eric needed me, without thinking, and I couldn’t go back on a promise. And after all those years…”

He stopped. I could see he was looking at me and how tense he was. “I just don’t know what to say except I’m sorry.”

“Biggles,” I was as tense as he. “It’s not you who should apologise, it’s me. Ginger and Bertie supported you. I didn’t, and I’m supposed to be your friend. Once we were so close… Once…” tears pricked at the back of my eyes. “Somewhere I lost you, and I suppose I was just trying to hang on… and not let her…” But I couldn’t say any more; I couldn’t say I was possessive and jealous and that no sort of real friend should ever be like that.

He moved closer and laid his hand on my arm. “We lost each other. We stopped talking to each other, I don’t know when.” He hestitated then asked “So, am I forgiven?”

“Am I?”

He slid his hand down to my hand. We didn’t need to say anything.

I took a deep breath and decided it was time to practise being unselfish. “So you rescued her ok?”

“Yes. And Erich. She’s buying a cottage in Hampshire which she knows from her schooldays. And my guess is it won’t be long before Erich finds somewhere nearby, or joins her.”

“Erich!”

“Yes. He had hoped to marry her. If I hadn’t dropped out of the sky on her doorstep that day, maybe they would have got married. And maybe then he’d have had somebody to live for and not gone off the rails.”

I was stunned into silence, briefly. “But… what about you… and her?” I blurted out.

“Algy, that was so long ago, I was too young – I didn’t have a clue what love was. My romantic grand passion,” he spoke bitterly, “which so nearly… well you know. I hope I know better now.” His voice softened. “I know what I value, who I value. I am sure she and I shall be friends.” He laughed softly. “She’s very charming and good company, Algy. Actually, she’s your sort of girl. I hope you will like her too, one day.”

++++

Just occasionally, I got a break from being the everlasting back-up person. Biggles and I went off on our own three times towards the end of our police careers. The Chile trip was even quite enjoyable - not quite like a holiday but almost! Biggles told the others later that I was the star of the show, parachuting down onto a narrow ledge in the Andes for a damsel in distress, or more accurately, an air hostess from a crashed passenger plane. It was even my idea, though I was quite surprised when Biggles agreed.

Fortunately I landed safely, checked the narrow ledge for obstacles, and then Biggles also landed the plane safely. What if one of us hadn’t? Well, no point in asking that sort of question in retrospect, but I knew damned well that Biggles wouldn’t leave me to walk home, and he knew that too. He said he was getting too old to take risks like that, but I knew him well enough to know that secretly he was pleased; he liked to be reassured that he still had all his old flying skills.

Some while later there was a lull in the office and all four of us in turn had caught a particularly nasty cold going round the Yard; so I was pleased when, for once, I won the ‘who is going to go’ lottery and went with Biggles to an obscure little British island in the Bay of Benghal, just to check out whether or not anything was going on that shouldn’t be.

There were the usual sort of things in the tropics: giant decapods, sharks, angry natives and a violent tropical storm, but for a small island where you would think nothing ever happened, rather too many murders. The fuss was caused by nothing new: drugs and greed, but the greed was for opals, traditionally bringing bad luck, and it was curious that everybody who grabbed the gems was dead within hours! But until the island and its wild and human inhabitants showed us a nastier side, it did seem rather like paradise. Our first night was perfect – it was so peaceful, so different from cold grey London; the moon shining on the sea. We sat for ages on the warm sand, captivated by the beauty all around us. Biggles said he could understand why some people wanted to slip away to a piece of paradise.

Then there was the Blue Moon incident. We were looking for a Chinaman called Mr Lin Seng who was an expert on pearls – his father had started it. It all took place in Taihan, Malaya, in the middle of inaccessible jungle apart from an access road. We based our Auster at Kuala Lumpur, but this time it wasn’t so straightforward. Lin Seng’s family had been murdered; there was a gang of criminals in the forest, who had murdered a Post Office engineer sent to repair the telephone line whose wires had been cut; an invasion of Indonesians expected any day; and, the only thing to be said, was that Lin Seng was as charming as we had been told. Then, after a day spent surveying the disused golf course, to say nothing of turning an American out from Lin Seng’s private pavilion, to  cap it all, Biggles decided to cut and run for it – somebody had to fetch the plane and he didn’t give me the choice! That was of course because it was dangerous and he wasn’t sure he’d make it.

I was left to supervise the clearing of the runway, and be generally in charge. As it is in the best of stories, there was a happy ending, although not before some excitement and last-minute nerves… At one point, Biggles was just behind the gang at the rear of the column, being guarded both back and front. When I blew up the unofficial tree bridge little did I know that! However, all came to a satisfactory conclusion, despite Biggles being late…

Lin Seng came over to London to renew his thanks. When he left, there stood on the mantelpiece an exquisitely carved jade ornament in the shape of a fish. It was, and always had been in his country, a talisman that would bring good luck. After he had gone, I turned to Biggles and said that if there were to be any more jobs like the last one, we’d need it.

++++

Inevitably, time caught up with us – nobody can go on for ever and there came the moment when retirement reared its inescapable head.  It all started when Raymond tackled Biggles completely out of the blue which gave him quite a shock. The Air Police had been so successful that those in charge of the money had decided to put more resources into the unit. Raymond wanted to oversee how this was done and, inevitably, he wanted Biggles to organise everything for him. I thought this was typical of our Chief. Raymond was long overdue to retire and it seemed to me that he was hell bent on seeing Biggles and myself out first, then no doubt sitting back smugly with a beautifully functioning unit and a suitable award for himself in the Queen’s birthday honours list. But maybe I did him an injustice. Be that as it may, Biggles found himself with the task of choosing and training new staff – those who would be successors to ourselves. He was quite keen at first, accepting the inevitability of retirement with good grace and the realism that stemmed from his honesty about life in general.

Our first candidate was an RAF pilot due to finish his tour of duty. He was of mixed descent, although a Scot by birth, his mother having been an Indian. I did wonder, given that Biggles was born and spent the first 14 years of his life in an outpost of what was then the Empire, whether Raymond thought that would be in this lad’s favour but, if so, he should have known better. Biggles always took people as he found them and judged them by what they did, not the colour of their skin or their credentials. However, the lad proved himself and in due course was accepted onto the team. Others followed. The idea was, after all, to increase numbers and striking capacity in the unit. But Biggles became progressively disenchanted. As he said, and I agreed with him, there was something horribly depressing about training people who were going to take over from you, knowing that things would change when you left and feeling increasingly irrelevant and out of date.

Ginger and Bertie were each a tower of strength in his own way; in fact Bertie’s cheerfulness and Ginger’s obvious willingness to adapt to modern technology went a long way to make the last few months bearable. The Air Police were in good hands.

Biggles had always had an eye to the future as far as Ginger was concerned. “We have taught him all we can Algy. It is up to him now. He’s the next generation.” All those years I had been ‘second in command’, ‘the reliable man in reserve’, and all the other things Biggles had enumerated over the years in response to my frustration; I knew it made sense; I had always known but I just didn’t like it much: Ginger in ‘my’ seat, learning what to do, and no doubt what not to do; being trained to take over when the time came. Biggles knew he couldn’t go on for ever but he was doing his damndest to see that what he had started and put so much effort into was going to carry on successfully.

However, there remained the question of what _we_ were going to do when we retired. The unspoken issue of Marie was too often in my thoughts and when Biggles declared that it might be a good idea to follow her example and buy a small cottage in the country, I thought that I knew in which county such a cottage would be chosen. The last thing I was going to do was play ‘gooseberry’, or join Erich von Stalhein in the ‘also-rans’, so I started to think seriously about going back to Wales. It wasn’t that I wanted to do that, because Wales hadn’t been home since I left it in 1917, but I had to do something with whatever remained of my life, and at least on the family estate I might be able to do something useful.

Biggles and I had a few uncommitted and very casual conversations about the future. We were like a couple of fencers circling round each other, neither being willing to commit ourselves to making the first move. In the end, it was Biggles who gave in.

“Are you really going back to Wales?”

“Maybe – if there’s nothing better.”

“Fair enough. You’ve seen precious little of your family. I’m sorry – my fault.”

I was curious. “Why your fault?”

“You stuck with me… when I needed you. You didn’t have to. And God knows I was… no, am, always will be… in your debt.”

He stopped, embarrassed. We didn’t normally discuss that sort of thing. I took a deep breath and plunged in before I could change my mind. “Well, if you are going to retire to Hampshire…”

He interrupted me. “Hampshire! Who said anything about Hampshire?”

“I thought…”

He gave me a curious look. “I did mean what I said, Algy. I grew out of that a long time ago. My idea is to be as far away from London as possible, well out of reach of Raymond, Ginger, Bertie, Gaskin, and anybody else who might just wander in and say ‘what would you do if…’. In fact,” he hesitated, looking hopefully at me, “I have been wondering if Cornwall might be nice. Warm, beautiful scenery, lovely coast, lots of swimming and boats, as far from London as you can get...”

“Cornwall!”

“I don’t suppose you’d be interested really. Not if you are going home to Wales.” He pretended indifference.

“If you are going to Cornwall,” I declared emphatically, “I am going to Cornwall too!”

It was like sunshine breaking out from behind a big black cloud: a huge happy smile, and I smiled back. We were going to retire to Cornwall and life was suddenly full of promise, stretching out in front of us for all eternity. Yes, I can imagine what anyone reading this would think: how sentimental, how childish. But at that moment I didn’t care for anything or anybody else. I had won, not she. Not because of anything I had done but because that was what he had chosen. Or maybe it _was_ what I had done, endlessly through the decades that we had lived and worked together; just that we had never talked about our feelings – because you simply didn’t.

After that, we couldn't escape fast enough.

The big decision was a small one: north or south coast. The north was less crowded but the south was warmer. Biggles said he didn’t mind in the slightest and that I could choose. I didn’t mind either which wasn’t very helpful! In the end we rented a cottage in the south for a month in early summer, just to have a look round. Smugglers Cottage was in a small valley with its own cove. We picked up the keys from a lady in the village and drove on down a tiny lane, its hedges dripping with honeysuckle and festooned with wild roses. It was unbelievably idyllic.

Well, to cut a long story short, we stayed a bit more than one month in Smugglers Cottage! It was as good as it looked, and it had its own private beach. In fact we bought it after a while, between us.

++++

That first summer, in mid-August, we sat on the cliff top above our private beach, to watch the meteor shower. But I was conscious of a feeling of unease emanating from Biggles and, when I thought about it, I had an uncomfortable feeling it had been there some time. We sat in silence for a while. Then…

“Algy, I’m really sorry… I can’t go on living with you… I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” He broke off with a suspicion of a sob. He tried again. “I can’t go on pretending… I thought I could control my feelings but…” He got to his feet and rushed off to the cottage. I heard the door open and bang shut behind him. I just sat there, my life in ruins.

I don’t know how long I sat there. Time ceased to have any meaning. Eventually I realised I was cold and I looked at my watch. It had stopped; I hadn’t remembered to wind it. Slowly I got to my feet. Reluctantly I too returned to the cottage. The clock on the downstairs mantelpiece said it was just after midnight. Miserably, I did what I always did at night, sort of on automatic pilot I suppose. But before turning in I went to see if Biggles was awake. He wasn’t, but his pillow was soaked with tears. I just stood there, my own tears sliding down my cheeks, wondering why he’d ever agreed to come to Cornwall.

He stirred restlessly, muttering, “Algy… Algy… Algy…” He shivered as if he had an erection. “Algy…” Then he half-woke and, trembling from the effort, cried out, “Algy!”

I watched in stupefaction, not believing what I saw and heard. Then my senses returned in a rush and I flung myself on top of him... I honestly don’t remember much more about that night, other than we both found each other…

++++

We had been there about fifteen months and we were ridiculously idiotically happy, Biggles and I. But at the end of the second summer, well not quite the end perhaps, but in September some time, I noticed that Biggles was starting to make heavy weather of the return trip up the cliff. I didn’t comment at first but eventually, it got to the stage where I felt I had to. I said as gently as I knew how, “Biggles, old chap, you seem to be having a problem with the slope.”

He didn’t answer at first. We got to the top of the cliff and I took a deep breath and I prepared to try again. But it wasn’t necessary. He looked apologetically at me, and confessed he’d had a lot of practice at deceiving people, but he hadn’t been trying to deceive me. In fact the reverse was true. Those expressionful eyes caught mine and held them for an instant before looking away.

“Biggles, if there’s something wrong with you, we can go to a doctor.”

“Yes.”

“We’ve got our medical cards here; we’ve got a nice friendly doctor in the village; we’ve got…”

Biggles sighed. “All this is true.”

He decided not to worry about it there and then, as it was a weekend. You can imagine what I thought about that! Still, he was right, it was a weekend, but that didn’t stop me worrying. Come Monday, the first thing I did was check the phone number of the doctor. I then dialled it and made an appointment for Biggles. He wasn’t going to wriggle out of it.

That Monday afternoon will live forever in my memory. We walked into the doctor’s surgery, both of us. He looked at me, and at Biggles, and he said, “I can see one of you has a problem.”

He said a whole lot more, needless to say. But that was that. We couldn’t believe it – well I couldn’t. He wanted to send Biggles to London, for tests of course, followed by ‘treatment’. But Biggles said he wanted to think about it.

We walked back home in silence. Biggles had suspected this all along, and when we reached home he broke down, burying his head in his hands, sobbing. “Why do I have to die, now, when we are so happy…”

I put my arms round him, feeling with a shock how thin he had become without my noticing it. It was the first and last time we wept together. Eventually we had cried out all our tears – there was nothing left to do other than hold each other and watch the sunset reflected in the water. Slowly, imperceptibly, the rich colours faded and were replaced by the soft darkness of a moonless night.

++++

Biggles did go to London, to see a cancer specialist. The specialist took a good look at Biggles, asked him some questions, took some of his blood, gave him a scan, established that he’d been a chain smoker… None of this altered the basic fact that lung cancer, by the time it has reached the stage where it shows, will have spread to other organs. That much we knew, and lots of other nasty things besides, including the fact that it was said to be incurable.

Biggles came away from that experience more determined than ever that he was not going to be anybody’s guinea pig. He was not going to suffer chemotherapy with all its side effects just to prolong his life by a few months. He had faced up to the fact that he was going to die, and he would do that, quietly, at Smugglers Cottage. But the only thing was, would I agree. He looked at me anxiously, for confirmation that his chosen course would be approved. I said whatever he wanted was ok with me. We went home to Smugglers Cottage.

++++

Biggles was nothing if not determined! We completely reformed the way we lived, throwing out the cigarettes and most of the alcohol. But the cancer continued to grow, inexorably. We eventually got to the point where our doctor called monthly; then he started calling weekly – we knew Biggles didn’t have long to live.

++++

I awoke just before dawn. I have never come to terms with being awake so early; I always feel it presages no good. I sat up in bed but I wasn’t expecting anything to be different from any of the previous days. He was having difficulty in breathing, as so often first thing. I lifted him in my arms and tried to give him some relief by holding him in a more upright position. He laid his head against my chest and closed his eyes, and thus we remained for… I don’t know how long. I lost track of time; I wondered if he was asleep; I almost was myself.

I was jerked back into awareness by a slight movement. He lifted his head and opened his eyes. For a brief moment, his eyes held my eyes. “Algy...” It was little more than a whisper. “Al-gy” … and he was gone.

I buried my face in him and wept. But in the midst of my grief, there was for once unselfishness – he was at peace; no more suffering.

++++

We buried him in the old churchyard next to the ancient stone church; it was secluded, a secret place, in a small valley going down to the sea, out of the way of the harsh winter winds. The family wanted him to be buried ‘at home’ but Merioneth wasn’t his home – it wasn’t mine either. We had our own lives and home was with each other. I took sunflowers from our garden; only he would have understood, and it seemed appropriate.

I stayed in that quiet place and tried to be useful, existing with my loss, waiting for my turn. Not in the cottage – there were too many memories, like stabbing knives. The vicar’s daughter lost her husband in an accident at sea. Left on her own with a baby daughter to look after, she had need of somewhere to be safe and the cottage was perfect.

++++

_Epilogue_

_A young woman walked down the valley, in at the lychgate and through the churchyard. A small girl trotted at her side, holding her mother’s hand as they threaded their way through the graves. The young woman carried two bunches of sunflowers, as she did every year – one for each grave_.


End file.
